


smoke signals

by nascar



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Birthdays, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Minor Character Death, Unconventional story telling, nohyuck soulmates!!!!, some dark themes but not too deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26205508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nascar/pseuds/nascar
Summary: When Jeno turns fifteen Donghyuck punches him square in the face. Then says something in french that he probably learned from his father who moved to Maine from Montpellier to scatter his genes across their short walk of a town. They’re in the woods, like most of their time spent together, and Donghyuck is mostly mad and a little tired.Compass broken, neckerchief unraveled and a gross thorny cut across his forehead, Donghyuck is the most beautiful boy Lee Jeno has ever seen. And the angriest.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	smoke signals

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii <3 im back !!! taking a break from working & college admissions essays to write something short and sweet this afternoon! a bit of a mix of the virgin suicides and moonlight kingdom idk
> 
> title from smoke signals by Phoebe Bridgers which kind of fits the story i think
> 
> enjoy !!!

  
  


13

Jeno has poked a lot of things in his life. He’s what they call a poker. If you’ve got something strange on the ground, you can count on Lee Jeno to be there with his stick to poke away at it. Dead birds, birds who are not dead at all, jellyfish, trash, worms, fish. He’s just about poked it all. 

Today, Jeno’s thirteenth is spent on the beach with Lee Donghyuck, poking things. Jeno’s stick is met with what looks like a classic  _ Larus argentatus,  _ a seagull. The feathers have turned a ruddy brown color and sand mites have taken over two little holes where the eyes used to be. It doesn’t move much, rigor mortis having long set it. 

“God, that’s morbid.” Donghyuck whines from behind him. He didn’t have to follow Jeno, he really didn’t. He could have chosen anyone else as his partner and yet he’s with Jeno, again.

“You’re probably a serial killer. You’re probably a psychopath who wants to kill me.” Jeno turns around to stare Donghyuck in the face. He doesn’t slow down. “You’ll probably come into my room tonight and see me sleeping and probably cut me open and poke at my dead body with that stick… Probably.” Donghyuck licks his lips and stares at Jeno wide eyed. 

The tide laps at the shore and Jeno sighs. “You’ve got issues.”

Donghyuck wipes his mouth on the back of his hand in this gross way and steps forward to take Jeno’s hand in his anyways. 

“Let’s go back now, Jeno. I’m tired and the wind is cold here.”

Jeno drops the stick to the ground and makes a short nod. 

15

When Jeno turns fifteen Donghyuck punches him square in the face. Then says something in french that he probably learned from his father who moved to Maine from Montpellier to scatter his genes across their short walk of a town. They’re in the woods, like most of their time spent together, and Donghyuck is mostly mad and a little tired. 

Compass broken, neckerchief unraveled and a gross thorny cut across his forehead, Donghyuck is the most beautiful boy Lee Jeno has ever seen. And the angriest. 

“Jeno we’re lost.”

Jeno does not respond to that. He’s learned that anything coming out of his mouth only serves to fuel the fire that is Donghyuck Lee. 

Instead, he checks the map again, and again. They only need to find running water, it’s just that simple. It seems that way at least, until they’ve been walking in circles for hours and no doubt their scout troop has noticed their absence by now. What with the loss of Donghyuck stopping them every few minutes to look at flowers. 

They camp out by this meek trickle of a stream for the night and Donghyuck tucks himself inside Jeno’s sleeping bag with him humming to the tune of happy birthday until they’re both good and tired. 

In the morning their scout troop leader Jaehyun finds them like that, huddled together and covered in dew. 

  
  


17

It’s June 13th, a week after Lee Donghyuck turns 17. A few months before everything goes to shit. Jeno wakes up to a long and sombering bird call, the clink of plates downstairs and the steady beep of his grandfather’s life support down the hall. There’s a rattling breeze against his window that beats carelessly against the condensation collecting under his window sill. The alarm clock flashes 5:40 shyly in the dark of Jeno’s bedroom.

Jeno parts his curtains with a finger, lifting himself up on one elbow and finds that  _ he’s _ out in the field, like a lawn doe, delicate with trembling legs and wide eyes. He’s wearing light boxers and a tee shirt that blends into the fog. Like a ghost he disappears and returns, like a grocery bag snagged on a briar and wanting in the wind. Something about him seized to be airborne. To float. Jeno watches him through his bedroom window unsure when the dream ends and the morning of Lee Donghyuck begins. The sky has yet to open and fog floats hazy over the green. 

Lee Donghyuck, a sleepy smudge of a boy, hazy under morning fog and hidden by white curtains. Lee Donghyuck didn’t flinch at things that bled, bit, or hurt. That was the thing that confused Jeno the most perhaps. The way a soft cheeked creature like Lee Donghyuck could pick at roadkill and onlook the primordial heartbreak without ever taking part in the violence of life and grief. Could be that Lee Donghyuck did awful things in that bedroom of his. The thing about those baby pink bedroom walls is that they didn’t speak much. Could be that Lee Jeno doesn’t know shit and Donghyuck wasn’t a mystery but a boy with real issues. 

It’s hard to look out at Donghyuck like this and remember that he bit Jeno’s ear just a few weeks ago over a lost baseball card. Jeno is reminded of driving through rural neighborhoods and playing this game with his younger sister. “Real!” he’d profess with his whole chest, pointing out the lithe figure of a doe on a trailer park lawn. “It’s real!” he almost sounded like begging, like the more powerful he said it the more likely it would be that the plastic lawn decal would have real lungs and gushing blood. But his sister would punch him in the shoulder when their parent’s car whizzed by the freak of nature and it didn’t move a damn muscle.

Donghyuck bled though, and spit and sweat, he did all of the gross things boys do, and things boys didn’t do. Like sleepwalking into the field by Jeno’s house at 5:40 in the morning. 

Jeno’s afraid to shake him awake sometimes because of what his cousin told him once. Sleepwalkers leave their souls in bed, if you wake them up you could kill them. Jeno sees it, him, his hands around Donghyuck’s shoulders, shaking him, then around his throat. Donghyuck soulless and crooked in his arms. So Jeno just watches and watches and falls asleep too. 

14

When Donghyuck turns fourteen he tells Jeno that he’s going to sign a blood pact. 

“Right now?” Jeno asks, party hat slipping haphazardly off of his head. Donghyuck just shrugs and wipes ice cream off the corner of his mouth. 

That night when all of Donghyuck’s cousins have returned home and it’s just them in Donghyuck’s attic, Donghyuck cuts into his own palm, and Jeno watches, entranced by the pool of red that manifests in the cup of Donghyuck’s small hand. He doesn’t even flinch when Donghyuck smudges his thumb on the corner of Jeno’s mouth then kisses him. 

“Why’d you do that?” Jeno asks, tasting the sweetness of Donghyuck’s spit on his lip. Donghyuck just shrugs and wipes blood off the corner of his mouth. 

17

Jeno’s seventeenth birthday is a disaster. He’d decided he didn’t want a birthday party this year, he’s grown too mature for such an erroneous celebration he tells his mother and father. He tells Donghyuck too while they’re out at the lookout who just shrugs and drops a bag of candies down from the top of the clubhouse to hit Jeno right in the head. 

When the day comes the world unfurls sweetly in a purple fog before erupting in color as the sun peaks over Maine for the first time in weeks. It’s short-lived though because then Donghyuck shows up in his bedroom with Jeno’s mother behind him, hand on his shoulder. He’s dressed in this ridiculous blend of sleepwear and a fishing jacket. He’s soaking too like he ran right out of the shower and across the lawn to Jeno’s house. There’s a heavy pause where Jeno knows something awful happened but doesn’t have the guts to ask what. 

Then Donghyuck surges forward, slamming into Jeno’s chest with a silent ‘oof’ and clings to him tightly. The force has Jeno’s socked feet hitting the side of his bed, one arm coming up to hold Donghyuck by the small of his back. He makes eye contact with his mom who looks to be crying too, a soiled tissue in one hand. 

Donghyuck’s older sister drowned in the inlet last night. It’s a soul-crushing kind of sad thing that doesn’t deserve a sunny day like the one they have but there’s not too much they can do about it because the sun stays out and Donghyuck’s sister stays dead. 

18

Donghyuck turns eighteen and is a little less sad then but still sad enough to be hard to handle most of the time. He does things that hurt the world, like cursing his parents' divorce and hitting himself when he cries. But Jeno is there through all of it anyways. 

When Donghyuck turns eighteen he’s taller and thinner but still boyish and has soft edges and still invested in making Jeno’s life a living hell. 

He’s also run away from home and paid Jeno’s younger sister to leave Jeno a note on his bedroom door. 

_ Dearest Jeno,  _

_ I’m running away. Don’t look for me. Happy Birthday, I love you. _

_ \-- Yours, Donghyuck. _

Jeno stares at the note for a long time before having breakfast with the urn of his grandfather’s ashes on the kitchen table. 

Donghyuck is by the creek where they fell asleep on Jeno’s thirteenth birthday. He’s wearing a dress shirt and a deep scowl when Jeno finds him. He has a bandaid on his knee that he’s picking at vigorously to have an excuse for not hearing Jeno’s hapless clambering over the creek bed. Donghyuck loves timing. 

Jeno sits down next to him, mouth tasting like syrup and toothpaste then kisses Donghyuck right on the lips. 

Donghyuck’s breath is cold on his cheek but his mouth is warm, like ice cream from a warm bowl. His hand is clammy where he touches Jeno’s cheek. 

It’s better than the kiss Jeno had with the mail man’s daughter over popcorn and better than the first kiss Donghyuck gave him years ago, tasting like pennies and unwashed hands. 

Donghyuck pulls away in a rare bout of shyness and tells Jeno, “I’m a fugitive now, I’m running away.”

To which Jeno replies, “then i’ll have to write you letters.”

“It’ll be hard to love me from so far away. What if someone finds out?”

Jeno laughs at the ridiculousness and Donghyuck touches his cheek with the back of his knuckles.

He says, “I think we’re just going to have to be secretly in love with each other”

Jeno thinks this is funny too. “You’re really complicated aren't you?” 

“I try not to be.”

That part is honest, Donghyuck doesn’t mean to be much of anything but he is and Jeno likes him that way. 

14

There’s a rumor that Donghyuck is a psychopath or a sociopath or whichever one Ted Bundy is. 

It starts at school, Jeno doesn’t want to dissect a frog. It starts off that way. It’s an embarrassing thing where Jeno cries and stares at the cold body of the frog in front of him, unmoving. Donghyuck, with all of his teasing and maniacal joking, doesn’t laugh. He solemnly finished his own frog and shouldered Jeno’s table partner out of the way to pat Jeno’s arm then hands him a tissue and the hall pass. 

When Jeno comes back his frog is drawn and quartered with surgical precision and his lab report is finished in his own handwriting. 

Donghyuck is staring down at his own desk, picking at his shirt sleeves. 

The next day the school is abuzz with the rumor that Donghyuck Lee enjoyed cutting open frogs so much that when Jeno went to the bathroom Donghyuck took his frog for himself. People switch seats, whisper, write things on the second floor boys bathroom wall. 

Jeno tries to apologize for it once on their way home but Donghyuck just laughs freely, balancing on the top of a brick wall and tells him, “Are you kidding? I get my own table in algebra now.”

But sometimes Jeno catches Donghyuck in the middle of the day, he looks cornered and out of place, scared. 9th graders are brutal. That’s when Jeno loves him most. Wants to protect this little piece of Donghyuck that’s so rejected and misunderstood and brave. 

He’ll bump Donghyuck’s shoulder and comment on his untied shoelaces and laugh when Donghyuck looks down and sees nothing but two perfectly tied loops. Off guard and sweet and not noticing the way Jeno watches out for him. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [twt](http://twitter.com/waters1gn) \+ [cc](http://curiouscat.me/crushcults)
> 
> i left my old twitter if u wanna follow me here <3 also if u don't leave a comment i will cry


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